Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Looking In the Mirror

Last night was an interesting night for me in WoW. I'm starting to see some things in myself that I never thought I would I see.

I logged in and saw we had a group already in Gruul's. I asked how long they had been there and I get the idea from the response it had been about 10 minutes. I start to get a little upset because I had posted on our forums when I'd be on.

I basically expected them to hold me a spot. GG me.

When the group struggled to kill Gruul, they called me to come in. At first, I was going to turn them down. I was in a snit for lack of a better word. Sulking. Being real mature.

But I decide to go anyway.

On our first go, the Main Tank had him too far away from the healers so he was moving him around a bit which made it very hard to keep him in the Consecration. Then I lost #2 threat to a DPS Warrior. I blew my whole mana bar and a mana pot trying to get him back, but because the healers were trying to keep the DPS Warrior up, I got caught low right before a Shatter. My Pot was on cooldown.

I died. We wiped. Nice one there, Hammer.

We regroup. The Warrior apologizes for pulling. No worries, we'll get him next time.

We start rocking and rolling on him. The attempt is looking pretty good when the MT goes down. I pick him up and our Rogues pop Evasion. We get one lucky dodge from our Rogues, and we are able to get him down the final 5 or 6%.

It is mentioned that we don't have time for Mag because Gruul took too long. I quip that had they waited for me, Gruul would have been a one shot.

I sat staring at my screen for a minute, sort of in disbelief of what I was seeing coming out of my virtual mouth.

The pride and arrogance that I was displaying was awful.

Everything I hated in the Tanks back at level 60, I was seeing develop in myself. The Arrogance, the Pride, the whining about repair bills, the lust for gear.

WoW is a temporary thing, a game, a castle in the sand. Very soon, no one will remember or remark what happened in that virtual world. Yet, there I was, acting like I was the only toon in the server who could do right.

I know that's not like me, I'm not like that, but there it was.

I made an apology in Officer Chat, and on our forums.

Life has a funny way of knocking pride and arrogance off someone. I hope I recognized my folly before my fall.

Hey, at least you recognized what you were doing and apologized; a lot of people never see their own bad behavior even when it's pointed out, to say nothing of just holding themselves to a higher standard.

You know, the whole "comfort the afflicted / afflict the comfortable" thing. ;)

You are being a bit too severe on yourself: one thought that you don't like ("Why didn't they wait for me?") and one typed line, and all of a sudden you are in danger of becoming just as arrogant, proud and greedy as the Tanks you hated at 60. That's quite a leap there.

Don't get me wrong: it must be very unsettling to find yourself thinking thoughts you always believed you wouldn't think, and that line you typed was indeed a bit misguided.

But those feelings of entitlement (whether to a hierarchical position or to loot) that produced your thought and your typed line, and also produced the bad behavior of those Tanks at 60, are in themselves not bad. On the contrary, they are very human. You put a lot of time and effort in your toon, and it shows: raids seem to be working better when you are tanking and as far as I gather, you are now the (unofficial) main tank of your guild. You are rightfully proud of what you have achieved. It is jarring if some of your guildmates do not have a measure of recognition for that as well.

Besides, it is entirely inefficient if a guild raid can't wait twenty minutes for you to come online so they have a higher chance of downing a boss without problems. Same thing holds for other key players, of course, you are not the only one, but you are definitely one of them.

It's up to you to show that you can use these feelings of entitlement to your advantage: by pointing out the inefficiency of organizing raids that key players can not attend, and suggesting a better way. That's not for your own personal good, that's better for the whole guild.

Well, that's what I wanted to say about it. Hope I made myself clear, if not, tell me; I'll be checking this thread :-).